Expect tasty bread

- if you visit our house. That is, if I manage to create the breads described in this book:


R1 gave it to me yesterday for my birthday. I have been dying to get my hands on it, so I am especially excited to have my very own copy!

To describe my birthday yesterday, let me just tell you what was on the menu:

• Waffles with fresh peaches, strawberries and cream.
• Popcorn and chocolate milk with W1 and L1.
• Chipotle burrito (I am fully converted to the carnitas-and-pinto-beans-are-the-best-combination camp).
• Ice cream cake made by R1.

It was a fun and delicious day. Thank you to all my wonderful family and friends!



(and now I will spend today recovering and eating mainly vegetables.)


(and leftover ice cream cake.)

Ummm, no.

...is how W1 responds to a good many of my requests/questions.



K1: Go get your sandals on so we can go outside. or Are you ready for breakfast? or Did you push L1?

W1: Ummm, no.




Lately, I decided to listen carefully to determine whether he could have possibly picked this up from me.



W1: I want candy. or I want to pee on the carpet. or Mom, can I have 5 cookies?

Really, how else can I respond?




Did he learn it from me? Ummm, yes. Yes, he did.

As I work off my free-burrito-induced stupor

(thanks for the heads up Amy, and thank you Chipotle for stepping in on a night when I really didn't want to cook dinner)

• W1 has a new quirk. He likes for us to all hold hands and then he says that we are "all together". This also applies to his cars lined up side by side ("Mom, they are all together"), stuffed bears, food, etc.

• I am slowly working through Team of Rivals, and enjoying every single page. But, I've also been watching Gods and Generals at the same time. The Civil War timeline in my head is getting all mixed up.

• I really want to make a couple of these. Anyone else?

• L1 says an amazing number of words (W1, who only said one or two words by his second birthday, being my frame of reference). Water is still his favorite, but he also frequently says diaper, more, milk, juice, cheese, up, down, go, ball...

• W1 turns 3 in a week and a half. I already asked him what type of cake he wants. His reply? Chocolate cake with blue frosting. Interesting.

I'm sure we have other things going on. Just can't think of them right now.

A spontaneous day trip

Saturday, at about 10 am, we decided to spend the day in Ithaca. We frantically packed a lunch, found a map, threw W1's potty in the back of the Jeep and headed out.

Some of the highlights of our trip:

A stop at the Waterloo outlet mall to purchase some (much needed) new clothing for R1.

A lovely drive along the Finger Lakes.

The beautiful gorges and waterfalls of the Taughannock and Robert H. Treman State parks.

(do you notice my death-grip on W1 so he didn't go plunging over the side?)

W1 found a stick to use as a fishing pole.


These tiny frogs were hanging out on the steps. W1 was fearless and wanted to hold one, while L1 was content to watch from a distance.


We stopped by the Finger Lakes National Forest, where we had heard there were blueberries for picking. We only found three berries before it was too dark to look anymore, but man, those three berries were delicious.

On our way home, we drove through Watkins Glen, which was hosting an Italian American festival. After winding our way through the traffic, we stopped to watch the fireworks from across the lake.
Fireworks are always the perfect end to a summer day!

W1's equation for sublime happiness

Tootsie roll + Richard Scarry book + L1 napping = sublime happiness

Interestingly,

W1's sublime happiness = relative peace

and,

relative peace = K1's sublime happiness

therefore,

W1's sublime happiness = K1's sublime happiness

Funny how that works.

* Tootsie rolls are W1's new (and very successful) potty treats. And yes, he is sitting on a blanket on the couch just in case.

In our future there will be:

(maybe not specifically, but something along those lines...)

Because we are having a girl!

Some recent randomness

L1's new favorite word is 'water'. Just go for a ride in a car with the kid during a rainstorm and you will hear your fill of it.

We went and looked at a car yesterday (from craigslist), and after the owner told us how he bought it from "a friend of a friend in Kentucky who got it from someone in Texas" and boasted about how much work he had done to it himself, "you know, lifting out the engine and changing the gaskets", R1 and I decided to pass...

Don't say the word camping around W1. If you do, he will inform you 100 times that he would like to go. Right now.

R1 and I had our 10th anniversary last week. It sort of just passed us by. Next year, for our 11th, I say we go all out and maybe go out for dessert or something.

Lately, it has been warm and muggy. Our freezer has been rapidly emptying of popsicles.

We purchased a farm share this year, and we've been enjoying lots of fresh veggies. Including green beans that W1 eats like they are candy. L1 spits them out like they are, um, not candy.

While having breakfast for dinner a few nights ago, I realized that everything we were eating was brown. French toast, hash browns, sausage. Perhaps this shouldn't have made a difference, but it did.

Last night W1 had his first monster-under-the-bed incident. It was a shark, and it was scary.

L1 and W1 have started to really like playing together. W1 gets pretty lonely while L1 is taking his nap, and I have to stop him from running in to wake him up. Here they are bonding over some ice-cold limeade: